I will disagree with this point until I breathe my last breath. It was an IDIOTIC draft pick - for several reasons, but two big ones: First, it was wasted draft value for that slot, which was made far worse by the horrid trading that got us to that position. Second, it showed how inept Bradway and Herm were with self-scouting, that they would evaluate the Jets as only a kicker away. I think that part (cemented further with the Ty Law signing) might have made me angrier. Maybe. Nugent seems to be doing well, but that doesn't change the fact that drafting him where we did was lunacy.
so, you defend his position, and then you say he is wrong...wow. yes you can outkick coverage if youre kicking line drives that are low. that kick that hobbs had the return on wasnt outkicking coverage, it was just shitty coverage.
IIRC we were a kicker away from the afc title game...call me crazy, but thats exactly how i remember it. aside from the horrible doug jolley move (which still boggles my mind) nugent was a quality pick at a big need position. going into that draft i remember there was a pretty large majority of people here that were amped at the notion of getting nugent. the guy has been solid since his arrival, and he has steadily progressed each year. the big knock on him comming out of last season and into this season was his KO ability. the kid has put in the work to be a better all around kicker. he had the streak snapped on a 50 yarder, and has had more touchbacks this year than all of last. maybe im blinded by my unadultarated hate for doug brien, and doug briens mother for pushing out such a sack of shit choking in the clutch butt plugging ass pirate...but i still say nugent was worth the second rounder.:up:
As many here might remember, I hated the pick on draft day 2005, and somewhere I may have even promised that I wouldn't ever speak of this again. I lied. Back then, I ran through an analysis of all the BEST kickers in the NFL. Looking at them all, what was abundantly clear was that you didn't need to waste a first day draft pick - and particularly not HIGH first day draft pick - to get a quality kicker. All the best kickers at that time were undrafted free agents, and that still holds pretty true. The better move would have been to draft a position player of genuine need, and not doing so, coupled with that ugly Jolley deal, put a strain on this team that we're just overcoming this year. That doesn't mean I don't like the kid.
Um...obviously you are mistaken. Players can't improve after their first season in the league. That is why we should immediately cut every rookie who isn't in the pro bowl. I mean look at Brick. He was weak last year, he's never going to improve, we are wasting our time! Doesn't everyone understand!
thats an excuse. theres no way youre going to tell me that he ran back the kick on nooges boot. im more inclined to believe what i saw...which was 3 missed tackles, 1 of which was bowens. and that was the reason vilma was in on ST after that.
Watch any NFL game this season. Virtually ALL kickoffs are landing in the end zone if not further. I'm reasonably sure the NFL is using a different ball or pressurizing it differently. There has to be some explanation for this. That said, Nooge has looked good anyway.
Oh c'mon Jack. The Pats won 3 superbowls by 3 points with an undrafted kicker and a 6th round QB. Does that mean you shouldn't spend a day 1 pick on a QB either? If you basically have a sure thing at any position, especially a position of dire need, it's worth a 2nd round pick. A kicker is a guy that can stay with your team for 15 years, and you'll NEVER have to pay out the toosh for him. Since Elway retired, the best player on the Broncos has been the kicker, Jason Elam. And he's like 90 years old now. Think they would have thrown a 2nd round pick in the mix if they had to go back in time? No, they would happily thrown in a 1st.
Believe it or not... but why would someone take a kick out from 8 yds deep unless he realized it had next to no hang time and guys were out of position because of it? He looked upfield, and then decided to take it out... He saw something.. it wasn't just poor tackling. A longer kick isn't always a better kick.. If you're more inclined to believe what was there, then you'd believe the no hangtime theory, because that's what was there. Vilma was on special teams in week 3.. this was week 1, and Vilma is hardly the surest tackler on this team. He's FASTER which is why he's on the field, so he can get down there a little faster on those low kicks.
Just like Sunday. As soon as Miami kicked off, I said out loud, he just outkicked the coverage. 98 yards later Leon was in the EZ.
Yeah, the Jolley trade was so bad that it sort of tainted that whole draft for me. Getting Nuge when the fans were screaming for Justin Miller and then getting Miller anyway was sort of exciting...then. I'm really disappointed in Miller's injury this year. But anyway, regardless of one of the previous posters declaring that there are lots of TBs so far this year, Nuge realized he needed to get better and did. That is a good sign and reason enough to lock him up for his career imo. Sheesh, I don't ever want to think about Jolley again.
He saw something...probably the coverage team slowing up because no one would expect him to run it out from 8 yards deep in the end zone. They still had plenty of chances to tackle him. The tackling has been bad on kickoffs for 3 games and it's not because he's outkicking the coverage. They're in position to make the play, they're just missing too many tackles.
Not sure if he would have lasted until the 4th but it worked out not to bad because Justin Miller was still around to save what was a disasterous draft- who can forget our forfeit of a first rounder for.................. still hutrs to say his name- Doug Jolly. I feel faint.
Got to agree with fenwyr here. The best K's in the league are definitely worth a high draft choice. Tons of games are decided by less than a TD and having a K that you can count on is hugely valuable. Now you can argue that it's much easier to find a high-quality K in the late rounds or undrafted vs. other positions. That is probably a valid point. However, once a high-quality K is secured (even with a high draft choice) I don't think you can go back and say that you didn't get value.
Was that draft perfect? No, most people don't understand what happened at all on draft day though. We did not trade a first rounder for Doug Jolley! We moved down a little into the second round and got Doug Jolley as compensation. If we hadn't moved down we were most likely going to pick Justin Miller anyway with our #1. Instead we got him with our 2nd 2nd rd pick saving a ton of money and also getting Nugent and also getting a serviceable TE. People talk about Doug Jolley like he is the worst TE on the planet. He had a decent career in Oakland. Sure he didn't do much with us, but when do we ever utilize our TEs? Look at Baker, clearly he is being underutilized. Also remember a lot of people wanted to draft Heath Miller with our #1 so TE was a need.
Which history tells us is just as easy - if not easier - than spending a high draft pick. Doug Brien, for example, was a first day draft pick. Robbie Gould came out of the same conference as Nugent, the same year as Nugent, and signed as an undrafted free agent with a team that already had a Hall of Fame kicker (said team thereafter bizarrely letting both of them walk away). He was an All-Pro in 2006 and went to the Pro-Bowl in 2007. We didn't need to spend a second round pick - our first pick of that draft - on a kicker. And, as it turns out, if we had picked Miller with our first pick in that draft we would have bungled 2005 even further. Fortunately, the Rhodes pick in Round 4 was such a good pick it brings the draft grade to a solid B.
Agreed on the first and third points. What makes you think the Jets are overcoming the talent strain this season? I see just the opposite: the talent strain is finally becoming too much to manage on both lines and that's why the Jets are not likely to compete at a high level this year.
